TEMPLES REVIVAL

Go on Bangalore Highway, off. Ocheri, some 7 kilometers you will land at Pudhur Village. Interestingly en-route to this breathtaking Vikrama Chola Temple (1118 AD), you come across 2 Shiva Temples and a Vishnu Temple belonging to the Nayaka Period, also lying uncared and in ruins.

Cross Palar river where sand quarrying with Dippers are going on, on the pretext of excavating land for building a bridge...

And you suddenly come across this Beauty lying amidst a Sugar Cane field...

Here They Are

Ramesh Shivan, an ardent shiva devotee, working in T.N. E.B, who mobilizes Uzavarappani groups for cleaning temple in and around Kanchipuram, is keen on seeing this temple back in shape. People please contact reach.foundation.india@gmail.com for donations, to renovate this beautiful temple. 80G IT exemption available for all Indian donors.

Labels: Chola temples, Ocheri, Pudhur, REACH FOUNDATION, temple renovation

Mathur, near Pullamangai alias pasupathi Kovil, next to Ayyampettai on the Tanjore- Kumbakonam Highway, really is a place where a huge forest ad-measuring some 100 acres, keeps beneath its covers a huge Vijayanagara period Vishnu temple under its green covers! Until the retired Headmaster of the Ayyampettai school, Mr. Selvaraj told us, we were not aware such a huge temple would be lost in time.

Labels: heritage conservation, mathur, pullamangai, REACH FOUNDATION, temple renovation, temples revival

Uttaramerur Kailasanathar temple restoration and renovation work progress news as on - Jan 2010

The renovation of Kailasanathar temple at Uttaramerur has started attracting press and public far and wide.
As on January 2010, all the stucco (limestone) figures and figurines have been completed on the vimana and few are given here in this link for you to see.

The same day, some important modern techniques were used to restore the heritage structure, thereby bridging modern techniques to save ancient marvels!
After a year full of research and consultations, testing and recording the stitching of granite using Stainless steel rods and proving their strength while being used as a stitching material along with a binder material made of epoxy, stones which lie below and the foundation level have been successfully retained without being rooted away, thus saving crores of rupees and time in removing all the stones used to build the temple! I.I.T Civil Engineering department Prof. Mathews and his PG research student Ms. Anupadma, and the company which provided the drilling and filling materials M/s.HILTI deserve our thanks and appreciation for their co-operation and services.

Cracks appearing at the bottom most part of the foundation, were 'stitched' using grooved Stainless rod thus the cracked granite stone is put back to a single repaired stone thus becoming integral using epoxy based grouting compound to bond the stainless steel rod with the granite core.
1) Drilling holes diagonally so that the hole passes through both halves of the broken granite...

2) After which the holes are cleaned to remove all the powdered granite chips and slurry
3) Then comes the pumping in of the epoxy putty grouting material

4) And the insertion of the grooved Stainless steel rod,


5) filling the holes with the same ground granite powder..

and ahoy..The crack is 'stitched'...

Labels: conserveheritage.org, Dantivarma Pallava temple, granite stitching, heritage conservation, Kailasanathar temple, Kalki. REACH FOUNDATION, temple renovation, Uttaramerur

REACH FOUNDATION normally does not support temple building which are done with modern techniques and also renovations which are new and not heritage temples. But a special exception is Shri. Vadapalani Ram murthy's renovation efforts and his latest temple renovations. He is a 70 year old-young lone warrior who always strives hard for ruined temple identification and rebuilding. This episode catches up the latest renovation of a Shiva temple at Neyveli which is a village close to the Poondi Reservoir, and it is believed that the 18 siddars worship Lord Agneeswarar daily in formless form! Miracles are happening daily and we were also witness to few of them! Readers willing to donate to this cause can contact Mr. Ram murthy on his number 9940398648 and REACH Chandrasekaran on his number 944441181. The brochure both in English and Tamil are scanned and shown here.

Labels: agneeswarar, heritage temples, miracles, neyveli, temple renovation, Temples, temples revival

Flickr or Picasa, or group file attachments, it is becoming difficult to share files as the limits are to less from either of the above sites. So, we are posting the article in jpeg form which mentions about the work of REACH and thanks to the editor and the reporter of Kalki Tamil Magazine for this good coverage. Small mis-quote is that the Varadaraja Perumal temple is more than 2000 years old and only the 100 pillar Mandapa is of Vijayanagar Period. The reporter had mentioned the temple itself as that of Vijayanagar period. Any way, thanks for the magazine to cover our story to reach more readers and join hands with us

Labels: heritage conservation, Kalki. REACH FOUNDATION, temple renovation

The Vishnu Temple after the Aavin milk dairy, at Semmenjeri, at OMR Chennai, had an unique problem.The 16 pillared mandapa before the main shrine and the two 4 pillared mandaps before the Thayar and Andal Sannidhi were fully covered with thick coat of paint. Later the trustees of the temple, found that it looked ugly and they approached REACH FOUNDATION for removal of the paint, without affecting the structure and material composition of the granite pillar.

We took up this challenge, brought in geological experts, researcher from IIT in civil, our founder trustee Dr. T.Satyamurthy and P.R.O Chandra devised a method to clean the mandap in 2 days and one night using paint stripper first and then blasting them off with high pressure water jet. Normally this cleaning is proven and faster, against the conventional cleaning of granite walls and pillars for which HR & CE uses sand blasting ruptures the surface and develops fine cracks. The sculptures on the pillars were also retained to the finest details by this method. Thanks to the trustees Mr. Srinivasan and Mr. Kannan who gave us the opportunity to do this and develop a far more safe and clean technology than sand blasting.
See the photos here.

Labels: cleaning pillaras, REACH FOUNDATION, restoration, sand blasting, Semmenjeri, temple cleaning, temple renovation, water jet cleaning